Previews

Dark Sector

We slice, dice, and blast our way through a new level of the sci-fi action shooter.

Spiffy:

Still feels fun and immediately familiar; glaive controls have been fine-tuned.

Iffy:

Framerate stability issues in this level that we haven't seen in prior demos.

When we last saw Dark Sector, Digital Extremes' shooter was coming along smoothly. In the two months since that demo, the game has seen a few tweaks, some for the better and some for the worse. We hope that just as quickly as the developers made the positive changes that they'll compensate for some of the backward steps, especially in regard to framerate stability. If they do, we've got a good feeling that Dark Sector should fit the bill for fans of action shooters in the vein of Gears of War and Resident Evil 4.

Dark Sector's plot puts you in the role of CIA cleaner Hayden Tenno, who's infected with a mysterious and mutagenic virus after a botched assassination attempt in a former Soviet republic. Thanks to the virus, which appears to overtake more and more of his body as the game progresses, he'll get enhanced abilities, such as a glaive that he can throw around to dismember hordes of soldiers. After diving into the first three levels of the game during our previous demo, this recent session showcased the fourth chapter. Titled "Moths to the Flame," the level is a showcase of all of Hayden's unlocked abilities up to that point; based on our time playing, you'll need them.

One of the elements within this chapter that's more prominent than in past demos is puzzle-solving. Members of the team told us that Hayden uses the glaive not only as a weapon, but as a key to getting past barriers. And it's not just for targeting huge padlocks to unlock doors: since the glaive can absorb fire or electricity, it's handy for knocking down biological obstacles. Case in point: in "Moths to the Flame," the worst of the infected have set up barriers that look like a mixture of slime and oil that blocks Hayden's passage. They're very susceptible to flame, however, and tossing the glaive through fire will briefly ignite it. You'll have to zero in and time your throw just right, but once you do, the ooze will burn away.

Speaking of timing the target, the power throw is different than it was during our last demo. There's a trick to throwing the glaive with fatal results: a meter will show up onscreen, and you'll have to match up three rotating parts at the right time to make a deadly toss. That's still the same as before, but the timing has been tweaked so it's more forgiving to time. We didn't mind the previous iteration too much, but we're sure that it'll be much more accessible for more casual gamers now. Also, we had only heard about the steal ability, but now finally got a chance to do it in-game. You'll see a different reticule for enemy weapons; a glaive toss at them will retrieve the artillery of the recently deceased.

We also saw the black-market shops that were cited in the past, but never shown. It's a lot like Resident Evil 4's sketchy vendors, but instead of some creepy guy with a cloak, you'll see manholes throughout the level. When you walk up to one and hit a button, you'll drop down and get shopping. The guns in DS are designed so that if you pick up an enemy weapon, it "expires" after a certain amount of time. As a result, in the earlier parts of the game, you'll really have to depend on your simple CIA-issued sidearm and the glaive. After a while, you'll be able to buy hacked guns on the black market and upgrade them with features such as stopping power, fire rate and clip size. It looks like you'll have to grab cash as much as possible during the levels; your resale value on arms has a worse rate of return than a college bookstore at the end of a semester.